Over Troubled Waters

by bi_writes, emphemeron

Summary:

You're an environmental scientist conducting research on an off-shore oil rig with only a few days left before you're slated to leave. The eldritch creature they accidentally awaken throws a wrench in the works.

Or: scenes from the 'Still Wakes the Deep' au

Notes:

this is less of a fic and more of a collection of scenes from this universe.

Chapter 1: First Meeting

Notes:

ceil's chapter :)

Choppy waters like Neptune’s eye meet your gaze when you look back at where you came from, the land on the other side but a beige striation on the horizon. 

“Afraid of heights, doctor?” your escort asks, his amusement borderline distasteful. It must stroke their ego to watch newcomers come aboard and flounder, gawking at the swells and waves crashing against the oil rig, each wave so cataclysmic that it’s a wonder the structure stays upright. A wonder of engineering, that is. 

The rig manager stands closer to the railing, staring without fear out into the ocean surrounding you. His sea legs are likelier studier than the ones that wash up ashore every fourteen days when he’s due for his OSHA mandated break. His knees don’t even buckle at the sight of the barnacles clinging nerve-wrackingly high up on the rig legs. Far too high up for comfort. 

“No, sir,” you reply, shaking your head. “Just water.”

He barks a laugh at that. “Plenny o’ that around here. Wouldn’y go leaning my head over the rail then, if I was you.”

You take another look down, balking at the frothy white streaking the latticework barrier around the jacket legs. No worries there; there isn’t a chance in hell you’ll be going anywhere near the rails. You’re too high up to know for sure, but you wonder if there are sharks plumbing the depths beneath the rig, excited by the noise and activity on board. 

You’d be shark chum if you went overboard. Beyond that, you’d be fish food; no sympathy from the sea to be found this far from land. 

“Where should I set up?” you ask instead. 

Sensing your eagerness to get started—and to get away from the edge of the rig—he gestures for you to follow him and sets off towards the door closest to you, leading you into the interior of the rig. “This way, doc—got a room already set up for ye. Cozier in there than out here.”

The first few days aren’t so bad after that. You spend the first day getting unpacked, your suitcase already waiting for you in your quarters, which doubles as your office, and then turn in early after prepping for the next day. 

As anticipated, you spend the next day hunched over the toilet bowl, stomach roiling from spending too long staring at the turbulent waters below. You’ve done this before but it never gets any easier. Despite your chosen field of research, you’re suited for dry land, not the sea. It’s the price you have to pay though. 

No coffee that first morning. Just tea to help settle your stomach. And it does for a bit—lets you get through your first day worth of tests without you upchucking while collecting water samples from the discharge point. You’ll save your indoor work for the days when the crests of the waves are high enough to spray the working deck. By dinner, your stomach is a little more settled, but still you elect to eat in your quarters instead of with the workers in the mess. 

You haven’t been on the rig long enough to have made any enemies, nor do you think that’s something that’ll happen during your brief time on board, but you definitely haven’t made any friends. It comes with the territory. The men that work on these rigs out in the middle of the ocean—even the ones on land, for that matter—tend to view your kind with distrust at the very least, if not outright hostility. 

It’s hard to blame them. The purpose of your visit isn’t to shower them with praises. You’re stationed on the rig for the next few days to collect data and samples to assess the environmental impact of the rig’s operations. It puts you somewhat at odds with them, the outcome of your work being potentially to the detriment of theirs. 

Some whisper the word like blasphemy. Government worker. They say it like you’re the Baba Yaga or a witch living in a cottage at the edge of the village, like uttering the word too loudly will summon you. There’s too much work to do around the rig for them to cluck their tongues like gossipy hens, but the men find time for it anyway. You’d roll your eyes if you were any greener. 

The truth is though, you’re used to it, and at this point in your career, you don’t have it in you to act like it’s such a shock that they wouldn’t give you the red carpet treatment. All you need is a hot cup of coffee, an office (or even just a desk) to write your reports, and some space to conduct your research without being badgered with questions.

Most of the men tend to blur together, a medley of fluorescent yellow hard hats and navy coveralls, respirations strung around their necks and goggles covering their eyes. It’s easy enough to mistake them for one another. 

Only one of them has managed to catch your eye so far, though you can’t say it’s for a particularly good reason. Of the lot of them, he’s the loudest. Which is saying something, considering that the crew tend to speak in shouts and hollers to make up for the crashing waves beneath them and the howling winds above them. He’s also among the tallest, broad shouldered and muscled—a former first responder or military, if you had to guess, though you keep your assumptions to yourself. 

You know better than to ask questions around him because you’ve learned in the short time that you’ve spent on the rig not to give him— Soap, they call him, or MacTavish when the rig manager is particularly pissed off—even an inch. 

It’s another crew member that gives you that heads up. “Din’y pay him any mind.”

“Who?” you ask, looking up from your work.

The crew member nods to the man posted on the other side of the main deck. “Soap. Bit of a showboat, that one. Always stirrin’ up the boys, gettin’ ‘em all riled up. Din’y let him distract ye too much.”

“Oh. Thanks.” You look back down at the data sheets in front of you. “I’m not worried though. He hasn’t been too much trouble.”

Famous last words. 

He isn’t too much trouble until he suddenly is; until he’s suddenly everywhere, always in your way somehow. Not so much underfoot as just always around the corner waiting with his stupid smug smirk that you’ve grown to despise and half-lidded electric blue eyes roving up and down the length of you. Aggravating you at every turn. 

Your first meeting is an accident. At least, it seems that way, and likely is—he seems too blunt for coincidences or chance meetings, happy to tell you to your face that he manipulated the situation in order to get you on your own. 

You’re wandering down one of the many circulatory hallways and slightly lost when a door suddenly opens, blocking your way. A jumpsuit-clad man twice your size walks out, his hair just brushing the top of the doorframe. Though you recognize him instantly, you’d never gotten close enough for the details to cement in your mental image of him. Up close, you get a better look.

The faint lines around his eyes and mouth betray either his age or the life he’s lived. Weathered; bronzed from days at a time spent under the sun. You’d noticed the mohawk earlier, but staring at the side of his head now, you can see the faint puckering of a healed wound splintering out from his temple into his hairline. Though the sides of his head are freshly shorn, the scar looks old—maybe a year, maybe more. 

When he notices that he’s not alone in the hall, his head turns in your direction and he stops, one foot still in the other room. Two thick brows go up at the sight of you standing there with your tablet clutched to your chest. 

“Hullo gorgeous,” Soap purrs, pupils suddenly pinpricks and your stomach drops. 

Because of course he would. You’d long figured he might be an arrogant piece of work from what little you’ve observed of him from across the rig, but you should’ve known he’d also be a flirt. He’s too good-looking not to be one. Tall and broad, with biceps the size of your head. You’re sure he rolls his shirt sleeves up just to feel them strain against the muscles of his arms. You certainly can’t help the way your eyes are drawn there. 

“Ah ken who ye are,” he says, taking a step towards you until the tips of his boots nearly touch yours. The door is still wide open behind him, swinging slowly towards the wall behind it. Soap towers over you easily, tipping his head to stare down at you. Your lips press into a tight line when his eyes drop to your chest, staring at the outline of your tits through your cardigan. 

“Okay,” you say through stiff lips.

“Yer that lass from the government. Ah thought ye'd be auld,” he jokes, shit-eating grin on his face. 

You nearly groan. It’s too early for this shit and you’re too tired from being up all night working on your report on the rig’s discharge water quality. 

“Well, I’m not,” you reply woodenly instead, altogether unimpressed with him. 

For as fit as he is, you’re not here to flirt or hookup, and you’re good at separating work and your personal life. If anyone manages to get under your skin enough to tempt you, it won’t be the man undressing you with his eyes while covered in a thin layer of grime and sweat. 

“Nae, yer no’,” he agrees, voice a low burr. His eyes flick up to meet yours. “I’m John, by the way.”

“I know.”

“…It’s polite tae give yer name when someone introduces thersel's tae ye.”

“I’d rather you just call me doctor.”

“Doctor, eh?” Soap purrs, running his tongue over his bottom lip. “Dae ye dae house calls, doc? Hae been feelin’ a wee bit feverish lately.”

You can’t help the way your cheeks heat at his comment. “Not that kind of doctor. Do you mind getting out of the way?”

“Jesus, I din’y ken ye’d be so fuckin’ prickly. Thought ye government workers were cheery a' the time.”

“Not when we have work to do,” you bite out, decidedly uncomfortable with his shameless perusal and eager just to get on with your day. “Can you move please? I have somewhere to be.”

All that does is force him to take another step closer, toe-to-toe with you now. You should’ve known he’d take that as an invitation. He reeks of grease and brine, the smell pungent and clinging to his skin and clothes. Almost like he sleeps and works in the same pair of coveralls instead of bringing his dirty clothes down to the laundry facility like everyone else at the end of the week. 

You tell yourself to stop staring at where his coveralls open to a sweat-slicked chest, dark hair poking up over the neckline, but your eyes don’t comply. A small cross dangles from a chain around his neck, nestled in the hair just above his pecs. 

“Good Catholic lass, are ye?” Soap asks, noticing the focal point of your gaze.

You scrunch up your nose at that. “No. I didn’t—it’s none of your business anyway.”

The stutter is where his eyes light up, a little gleam in the blue that lets you know you’ve caught his interest. Like seeing a storm well off in the distance and bracing for it anyway, knowing that you’re in its path no matter what you do. 

“A’right, doc, Ah'll leave ye tae it. Gotta get back myself anyway,” he says, rolling his shoulders back and standing up taller, and it’s only in that moment that you realize how low his neck had been bent in order to get closer to you. “Wait. I can’y let ye go lookin’ like that.”

You’re about to ask him what he means when he suddenly grabs you by the front of your cardigan and pulls you towards him, getting the grease on his hands all over the fabric. Your eyes nearly bug out of your skull as he pops the topmost button into its corresponding hole, the only one you’d left purposefully loose. 

The only reason you don’t snap at him to take his hands off you is because your tongue is a knot in your throat. 

“There we go,” Soap coos when the button is in, looking down at his handiwork all over the front of your shirt. “Lookin’ like part o’ the crew already.”

Your heart pounds in your chest long after he lets you go. When he steps to the side, the door flush with the wall by now, you dart around him, walking away as fast as your legs can carry you without sprinting. You ignore the way he belts out a laugh at your swift departure. Ignore the way your stomach cramps at the sound as well. 

He might end up being more trouble than you thought. 

Chapter 2: Warning Signs

Notes:

this chap was written by bi_writes !!! :)

Being alone feels different when there’s nowhere to run. Every wall looks the same, and the stench of must permeates in every room–the carpet must hold it in. Everything drips; the taste of salt won’t go away, and it makes your eyes dry out every time you close them and open them again. There are other people around you, men that are the cause of the knocks against the rig, but they are as alien as what lies beneath you. Every time you feel as if it’s too foreign, you remind yourself that there is nowhere to go.

The only way out of this place is by doing your job; but even that scares you all of the sudden.

Your bed is lumpy. The mattress feels dry, stiff, and it barely gives as you lay in it. You stare up at the bottom of the top bunk, trying not to think about the sound of sea water pelting your window like a threatening knock while you try to sleep.

Your mind barely gives. You keep the lamp that sits on your makeshift desk turned on. Without it, the black of nothingness from outside bleeds through the walls, and you swear you can see a thousand different shapes that claw their way out of the moonlight towards you. The rig doesn’t shake, but it breathes. It lives, somehow, deep legs connected to the seafloor to keep it from drifting off, from separating, from taking you with it, from suffocating you until your breaths are filled with water and your body is too cold to–

You jump when the lamp bursts. A jolt of electricity shatters the bulb, and you sit up in bed, clutching the sheets as you watch the lamp glow slightly before fizzling out. The room blankets into the dark, and you move shakily off your bed and pat around for your flashlight before clicking it on. The small circle of yellow light doesn’t do what you hoped; instead, it makes the shadows of every object longer and seem further away, and they start to move as your hand shakes, so much so that you cannot tell if something is coming towards you or if your mind is still convincing you of some sort of seasickness. One lodged into your brain, one that doesn’t make you nauseous but makes you paranoid that some hole in the ocean will open up and take you with it.

The thought of drowning is not as terrifying as finding out what lies beneath the surface of the water.

When you used to think of the ocean, it used to soothe you. When you closed your eyes, all you could see was crystal clear blue and tropical fish. You thought about running your fingers through warm water and kicking your feet as you watched dolphins fly beside you. When the sun penetrated the light, it shined until it showed the seafloor, where little creatures burrowed beneath bright sand, making it sparkle.

The ocean you know now is anything like it. You understand what they mean when they say “mother nature,” because only a woman scorned could eat the world the way she does. Waves touching taller than buildings. Animals so large, they would swallow you whole and let the acid of their insides quiet your screams for nutrition. An endless void, reaching miles towards the center of earth, a vast unknown that crushes heavy metals and defies physics the further and further you drop. She’s unforgiving. Mean. A terrifying, wonderful thing, and you are cheating death. You know it. She screams at you from just outside your thin walls, and you are pretending not to hear her. She’s telling you something, but you bury your nose in your books.

If it’s a warning she’s trying to give, you won’t know it until it’s too late.

The rig groans in the middle of the night. You can hear the pipes expanding, the water moving aggressively outside your window, the sounds of cranes and metal creaking that rattle off around you. Your hand shakes a little as you try and find your shoes, slipping them on as you open your door in search of a new source of light.

It’s the middle of the night, but there’s still a skeleton crew around, moving between their night shifts. You make your way down the hall, clicking off your flashlight, and you find yourself in the rec room in search of light bulbs in the utility closet there. You hear the doors swing open behind you, and you try to ignore the rowdy voices of men as you stand on your tiptoes and rummage the hundredth box for what you need. You try not to think about the whisps of something delicate you feel grazing your fingertips (because spiders wouldn’t be this far out from land, right?).

“Looks like ye need a little help, bonnie.”

You startle yourself nearly out of your skin. You trip off the ledge you’re standing on, trying to hold your hands out to brace yourself, but you never hit the ground. Strong hands grip you around the middle, breaking your fall and getting you back onto your feet, nice and steady. You spin around, clutching your flashlight to your chest, panting like an anxious puppy. You can make out his blue eyes even in the dark, bright and seemingly concerned as Soap tries to get a grip on you to keep you from swaying.

“‘S alright, lass, ‘s just me! Soap, it’s Soap.”

You put a hand over your chest, trying to calm your breathing, You shake your head, closing your eyes as you try and repeat the mantra you’ve been telling yourself since you got on this stupid rig.

Your feet are on solid ground. Your feet are on solid ground. Your feet are on solid ground.

“Sorry,” you whisper. “I…”

“What are ye doin’ up?” He asks, clicking his tongue. “‘S the middle of the night! Reckon ye need yer beauty sleep.”

You smile a bit, but it doesn’t reach your eyes. You do it to placate him. Men don’t always respond well to sharp teeth, and you haven’t decided how you feel about this one yet. He’s too comfortable. His hands are still around your arms, thumbs smoothing too easily over the bone of your shoulders. He’s too close; he steps just nearer to you, tongue sliding over that top row of teeth, and you try not to think about the way his pupils dilate at the terrified look on your face, the one your smile cannot hide. When he tilts his head to the side, you think he means to look curious, but you think it closer to prey playing with its food. The curls of his growing mohawk fall over his forehead, drawing a dark shadow over his eyes, and you can no longer try to see what might give him away in his gaze.

“The light in my…room. I need a new one, I–” You shake your head. “It’s stupid, but I just…I can’t sleep.”

“We’ll get ye all right fer bed, love,” Soap chuckles. “What’s broken, ye ken what kind ye need?”

You blink, biting your lip, thinking. He’s still touching you; he still has his hands around your arms, but now they’ve settled around your elbow, calloused fingers curled over where they rest.

“I’m not sure. The lamp on my desk, it’s–”

“Ach, those are hidin’, I’m sure o’ it,” he lets you go, reaching up and hoisting down a few boxes before reaching for what lies behind them. He carries them on his shoulder before dropping them onto the floor, and you try not to think about watching him work. He’s a large man. Strong, that much is evident, but there’s something off. You think his physical appearance hides what lies inside. He’s pretty, in a way that shouldn’t be allowed. Straight teeth, a killer smile, arms that do not give once they’re taut with use. Even the uniform he wears does nothing to hide thicker thighs and a solid middle; but you try not to let it distract you from what really remains. If he wasn’t so gorgeous, you don’t think he’d get away with that tick that must exist in his brain. The one that allows him to crowd your space without much resistance. The one that lets him smile like that, like he’s won something, like he’s gotten what he wanted not because he fought for it, but because it is what he is owed. 

He bends over and picks up a bulb that looks good enough and hands it to you. When he straightens his back, you try to catch that look in his eyes again. Maybe he knows you’re looking for it, and now he’s hiding it. Maybe he’s cooing in his own head about what a clever girl you are and trying to decide how he’ll play his game differently.

“Can walk ye back, put it in fer ye.”

You take it from him, drawing a shaky breath. You want to say no. You want to tell him you can do it all on your own, that you’re fine, but then the closet door swings open, and a group of tired-looking crew stare at the two of you as they snicker and nudge each other.

“Wot ye doin’, Soap, seven minutes in heaven with the fuckin’ feds?”

“Och–shut the fuck up, the lot o’ ye,” Soap bites back. “Just doin’ her fuckin’ job, just like the rest o’ ye, so get the fuck out the way. Middle of the night, bunch of gobshites.”

Soap puts a hand around the small of your back, guiding you past the group and out into the hallway. He follows you wordlessly back to accommodations, stopping in front of your door. Your name isn’t on it, but you don’t comment about how he knew this was yours. He waits for you to open the door for him before following you inside.

“A right mess, luvvie.”

He doesn’t let you help. He kicks your bin under the desk, carefully discarding of the pieces of glass that are scattered across your desk. He grumbles under his breath about it being too sharp and how he will do it better and how he can take care of ye. 

When the lamp clicks back on, it paints the room in that comforting orange light, and you relax as you take a seat on your bed, clutching the sheets to dry your clammy palms. He still invades your space, but somehow, with the light, it dampens the sentiment. He scares you just a little less, but if you give him just that much, how much will he use it to his advantage?

“Ye need anythin’, I’m…just down there,” Soap says finally. He points behind him, down the north end of the hallway, and all you can do is nod. “Don’t listen to the lot, bonnie,” Soap adds. “Bunch o’ old, tired bastards. Mean no harm. But if they do, ye come ta me, ye hear?”

“Uhm…Soap?” You call out as he’s leaving. You don’t know why you stop him. You don’t know why you’re talking to him; you’re certain he’s not a stranger to telling a good lie. He turns to face you, leaning against the doorway, and you clear your throat. No one should look this good on just a few hours of sleep, but he’s still blinking awake, unsettlingly calm. “This place…it’s safe, right? I mean…safe as it ought to be?”

Soap smiles, but it’s not like his other smiles. It feels unnatural. His teeth are duller. Lips drier. Maybe he’s just tired.

“It’s safe, love. Swear it. Got me on those rivets.”

You don’t know why, but when he comes close to you, you let him. You let him touch your face, thick fingers smoothing down your jaw just a little too rough, big thumb along your bottom lip rubbing just a little too hard. You hear his door shut nearby once he goes.

The ocean screams. You can hear her again now that his voice is no longer around. You fall asleep knowing he’s close, and you pretend not to notice her. Just like always.

Chapter 3: Trouble Brewing

Notes:

ceil chapter :)

“Shit,” you huff, leaning back in your chair and crossing your arms over your chest, annoyance bleeding into your words as your frustration finally comes to a boil. 

“What’s th’ matter?” Roper, another rig worker, asks. He’s taken to sitting with you in the lounge whenever his breaks line up with yours, one of the few men to not treat you with barely concealed disdain. You can't deny that it's nice to have company.

“Nothing—I think I may have accidentally contaminated the samples. None of this looks right.” 

By this, you mean the papers spread out on the coffee table in front of you—print-outs of the water sample analyses. You’ve been staring at them for far too long, eyes practically burning after your tenth consecutive read through. 

Almost everything in the sample analysis looks off. The alkalinity, the pH, the temperature, the CO2 and H2S levels—even the microbiological parameters are far exceeded. At some point, you must have accidentally contaminated the samples; only in a worse case scenario, such as a massive oil leak, would you expect to see numbers like these, and you would know if that were the case. It would be immediately obvious not only by the distress spreading like a miasma through the rig, but simply by looking at the water crashing against the jacket legs beneath you. 

There’s something else too. Something in the samples that you’ve never seen before—almost like a faint iridescence to the water, a shimmer so light that it’s almost not perceptible to your eye. 

So it can’t be that. You must’ve done something wrong when collecting your samples from the discharge point. It’s frustrating to know that the work you’ve done so far has been basically for nothing, seeing as how you’ll have to do it all over again in order to get a fresh batch of samples, but you just remind yourself that these things happen. It could always be worse. 

A reminder of that appears right before your eyes when a guy on the other side of the lounge opens his trap and says to Roper, “Ye hear about MacTavish?”

Your ears perk up. Roper must notice because he just grins. “Na—what happened?”

The other man whistles through his teeth. “‘Twas a shit storm. Heard about it from O’Connor.”

“Och, spit it out, will ye? Quit keeping us in suspense.” 

“A’richt, just dinnae tell him ah tellt ye—‘ah swear he’ll take someone's head off at this rate.”

The men whisper and titter about it all afternoon—how MacTavish got dragged into the rig manager’s office and ripped into over some offshore antics (fightin’—near broke a guy’s jaw for mouthing off tae him, one crew member tells you surreptitiously, again reinforcing the gossiping hen opinion you’d already formed of them). You’re not exactly shocked by the news, but the quiet that comes over the rig in his absence is a bit jarring. 

Coming across him in the aftermath of the incident is, however, far more shocking. 

You see him first from across the mess scowling into his food, a dark cloud hanging over him. His usual roguish countenance is swapped for something more choleric, foul-tempered. It’s incongruous with the image you have of him in your head, the one that sees him as eternally cheery; cocksure and braggadocious. 

Roper warns you in no uncertain terms to give Soap a wide berth if you happen to come across him.

You cock a brow at that. “You think he’d hurt someone?”

“Na, tis nae like that. It wasn’y his fault that someone else wanted tae have a pissing contest. The lad’s just got an ill temper is all. He’ll gallus aff eventually—juist best nae tae git in his way until then.” 

No sense in trying to decipher what he means by that. You have a job to do anyway and the issue with your samples weighs far more heavily on your mind than Soap’s bad mood. 

Still, you recognize it as a distant cause for concern. Every so often it dawns on you how far you are from civilization—out in the middle of the North sea, surrounded by nothing but waves and men with voracious appetites. You grit your teeth and bear a lot as it is; unsavory comments and blatant stares, the kind of thing that registers as an ever present, unsung threat that you are impelled to ignore lest it be mentioned. Lest it be given a name.  

Soap’s bad mood might not be something you have to worry about, but still you acknowledge that you should probably keep your distance for the time being. At least until his pride is mended and he’s back to his old self. 

These days, you’re never allowed what you want though.

You’re around the bend of a hallway when you hear him coming, his distinctive thick brogue snapping at another crew member. Though your heart immediately starts pounding against your chest, there’s nothing you can do; the corridor behind you is too long to run back down without being seen and there aren’t any rooms to sneak into and use as cover. All you can do is stand there with your heart in your throat as he gets closer and closer. 

The sharp dogleg in the hall keeps him from seeing you until he’s already on you, nearly plowing into you before catching himself at the last minute, a big hand slamming against the wall beside you to stop him mid-step. You flinch despite anticipating him. 

“Jesus, bonnie, I didn’y see ye there. Make a bit o’ noise or somethin’,” Soap says, more brusque than he’s ever spoken to you before. 

“Sorry,” you mumble, attempting to sidestep him. 

“Ach, wait, ‘ah dinnae mean tae snap. Where are ye off tae?” he asks, stepping with you to the right so that you can’t pass around him. He’s quick enough that you walk straight into him, crushing your nose against his chest and wincing when you take a step back and wriggle it out. A hand clamps down on your shoulder to keep you from scurrying off any farther. 

“Um…I have some things to do.”

“Things?” he repeats, waiting for you to elaborate.

“I have work. Didn’t mean to get in your way.”

“Ah’m no’ an animal, bonnie; ye dinnae have to run off jus’ because ah’m in a mood.”

“I’m not running off—I really do have work to do, Soap. That’s why I’m here, remember?” You realize that he must like it when you get snippy with him because the second you do, his lips stretch into a grin, blue eyes glinting. 

“Want some help?” he asks. 

“Um…” 

Irritation clouds his expression. “Ah’m no’ gonna flip out if that’s what yer worried about. That shit with Rennick had nothing tae do with my work.”

That shifts the guilt around in you and gives it a bigger hole to wedge itself in. “…Sure. I guess I could use a hand.” 

“Now, ye aren't just asking tae make me feel better, are ye? ‘Cause ah’m a big boy; ah willnae cry if ye let me down gently.”

“Oh my god, Soap, do you want to help me or not?” you snap. 

His grin widens, a new little mischievous furl to it. “Well, ye dinnae have tae beg, bonnie. Ah’d be happy tae help ye out.”

Of course it was nothing but a ploy for him to rile you up and get you to be the one to ask for help. 

Back to the discharge point to collect fresh water samples. Soap doesn’t stop talking the whole walk, the onslaught of questions about your personal life and his own life offshore enough to make your ears ring. No chance of peace and quiet—not with him around, anyway. 

On your way up a flight of stairs, you peek back at him to find him climbing with his hands on both railings. You’re not sure if it’s to keep you from slipping away or to keep himself stable, but if you were a bettor, you know which you’d pick. 

Soap grins toothily up at you. You roll your eyes in response and turn back around, climbing up the last few steps. The ocean’s ever tempestuous winds howl in the distance. 

For all your initial reluctance to let him help you, he proves to be a pretty useful assistant, helping you flush the sample point beforehand and then holding your equipment as you carefully fill and cap each sample bottle. 

He’s such a help in fact, that part of you feels a bit guilty for the way you treated him earlier. Like a ticking time bomb. Wouldn’t you also be upset after being told off by your boss? You have the luxury of not really reporting to anyone on the rig—so long as you send your boss daily updates on the progress of your work and follow safety and security regulations on the rig, you never worry about being reprimanded. Certainly not yelled at. 

You’re also surrounded by strangers for the most part, which, while sometimes alienating, also means that you’re not particularly invested in what anyone has to say about you. These aren’t your coworkers. In a couple weeks’ time, you’ll be flown back to shore and you’ll never see any of them ever again. 

The walk back to your room-cum-office is different. Soap follows behind you quietly for a change, your additional samples in hand, and only the sound of his steel-toed boots clanging against the floor remind you that he’s still with you. You didn’t think he had it in him to stay quiet for so long. 

He follows in after you when you reach your room, not bothering to wait outside like anyone with common sense would. It would be more aggravating if he weren’t so handsome. It’s hard to look at him and hold on to any real anger though. 

“I—uh—I’m sorry you had a rough day,” you finally manage to blurt out. 

He must eye you dubiously because you can feel the weight of his gaze. Not like he doesn’t understand what you’re referring to, but more like he doesn’t quite trust your sincerity. 

“Ah must’ve been bonny crabby for ye tae apologize for that asshole,” he teases. You can tell through the joke that even now his pride is a little stung that you brought it up at all.  

If his temper weren’t so volatile, you might actually be tempted to spend more time with him. You have to shake that thought away as soon as it comes to you though; you won’t be on the rig for much longer anyway. 

“What’d you do anyway?” you blurt out, immediately thinking better of your words when Soap’s face darkens, nostrils flaring the slightest bit. “Sorry, that was—don’t answer that.”

“Nah, it’s no’—” he pauses, sucking air in between his teeth. “It’s no’ a secret or anythin’. Got myself mixed up in some bad shit, but it’s over, ah swear. Told Rennick that it wasnae anythin’ tae worry about, but he gave me hell anyway.” 

“He seems like a dick,” you say in consolation. 

“Aye,” Soap laughs. 

He waits until you’ve packed all your samples away before opening his mouth again. 

“Ye ken what would really make me feel better, bonnie?”

You glance over at him suspiciously, bracing yourself for something crass. You can feel it brewing—the culmination of days worth of purred words and heady glances, his interest so blatant that ignoring it feels almost pointless. He lays it on thick enough that you’d have to be blind not to have picked up on it. 

So, it catches you off guard when instead of making a licentious comment, he just sighs, “Ah could really use a hug.”

That’s—that’s a bit more reasonable than what you had anticipated. Surprising enough for you to lower your hackles and turn to face him. 

He holds his arms out in invitation, face expectant. That nearly makes you cringe before you catch yourself. You’ve been caught in this trap before—your tentative kindness leveraged for physical affection; pushing your boundaries at the first sign of weakness, like waging a siege on you—and even though your teeth itch with the urge to snap at him, it just doesn’t feel worth it. Easier just to capitulate and give what he wants. Just this once. 

Besides, it’s just a hug. 

His arms fold around you the second you step into them, constricting around your waist like two steel bands holding you in place. He hugs tight too, not an inch of space between your bodies, your breasts flush with his chest. Toes practically scraping the ground, lifted up by the strength of his arms. 

The blood rushes to your head. Weak kneed. It’s almost a blessing that Soap’s arms are holding you up. Every inch of your body feels electrified, nerves spitting hot fire; even your scalp tingles when he rests his chin on your crown. You don’t like to think about it—how little anyone touches you these days and how starved your body is for it. Even offshore, you haven’t dated in so long that it seems almost incomprehensible now that you’ve ever dated anyone before.

He groans into your hair, lost in his own head. One of his hands curves up and around your back until it cups over your shoulder, anchoring you even tighter to his chest. You can feel the bulge of every muscle, the tensile strength vibrating under his skin, and it’s only then that you realize that he’s shaking. 

The other thing you can’t ignore is the weight of his dick pressing into you. Your eyes bulge when you realize you can feel it thicken with blood against your belly. Even through the material of his pants, you can tell that it’s big. 

“Christ, bonnie,” Soap whines, pulling you somehow even tighter to him, nearly cutting off your breath. “Yer so fucking soft.”

“Soap—” you squeak. “Okay, I think that’s—I’ve—I’ve got work to do—”

You tense when his free hand drifts down your back and settles right over your ass. 

“Soap—” you hiss, then yelp when his hand drops even more and his fingers into a soft, fleshy cheek and he grinds his hips into your belly. You’re not sure if he’s even aware of what he’s doing, his hug devolving into something coarse and almost sexual. 

You reach a hand up to grab him by the jaw and push his head away, struggling feebly in his hold until his arms finally give a little and you’re able to wriggle out, scampering back until you’ve put some distance between the two of you. 

When you meet Soap’s eyes, you have to fight the urge to flinch. It takes him a second to regain control of himself, slack-jawed and hungry-eyed until he blinks and it starts to melt away. His chest heaves with his ragged breath. He looks every bit like a man that just got kicked out of bed before finishing, dick still hard in his pants. 

“Sorry, bonnie. Ah got a little carried away,” he says apologetically, eyes so round that they almost make him look puppyish. 

“It’s fine.” 

It’s not fine. You’re still shaky and your thighs are suspiciously damp and you’re fairly sure all the blood in your body has rushed to your face because your cheeks feel like they’re on fire, but you also don’t want to acknowledge the obvious. The outline of his dick straining against his pant leg. The dark flush on his cheekbones and his glazed over eyes. The way you have to fight the urge not to stare at the fabric of his jumpsuit tight around his thighs and biceps. 

“Ah’ll, uh…ah’ll see ye later then.” He takes a step back, then another, waiting maybe for you to say something. For you to tell him that it’s alright to stay. 

You smile tightly instead, ignore the urge to call him back to you. Your smile only drops when he closes the door behind him. 

There’s trouble brewing. You can feel it swelling up like a wave, ready to crash into you. 

Under you, you can feel the rig shift with the water and in the distance, something howls.

Chapter 4: Something in the Water

Summary:

this part is written by bi_writes !!!! :D

There’s something in the water.

The numbers that stare back at you might as well be flashing red and sounding sirens. Your hands shake—like glass with too many cracks, you feel as if you’re standing on the edge of something but can’t look forward. Not because the abyss is too dark to see, but because someone is deliberately covering your eyes as you teeter along some uneven cliff.

This is the second time you’ve done the analysis. The first time, you were careful, but when you saw the results, you panicked. Maybe you forgot to calibrate the machine. Maybe the glass wasn’t cleaned properly, and all of your samples were therefore contaminated. Maybe you were just negligent, had done this sort of thing too many times, that you must have forgot some crucial step that skewed your numbers so terribly, there was no way to conclude anything but that your analysis was too poor to record.

You did it again this time. You had the manual out, and you crossed off the steps as you did them. Your math is correct. You’ve done it more than once, used a calculator for the basic algebra, in the event that perhaps your brain could not remember how to multiply, but the numbers stay the same. You shakily bring over the report you wrote the night before and compare them. The report looks worse. Something is changing, at a rapid pace, and you feel sick.

The rig groans, and you stand up abruptly from your seat. The chair you were seated in falls onto its side behind you, and you step backwards, until you hit the wall behind you, and you cover your face with your hands.

There’s something in the water.

As a scientist, your thoughts immediately try to come up with practical assumptions. From how you’ve observed the men on this rig, they try their best, but management is poor—perhaps they’ve let something slip through the cracks. Quality control declining, safety checks abandoned, perhaps in an effort to increase production, they’ve forgone proper training, and now there are men unknowingly wreaking havoc.

The thing is—you know what you saw. Oil and water do not mix; they are immiscible liquids that, because of their innate properties, separate and pull away from one another. What you saw was not a separation, and it wasn’t something else bridging the layer between oil and water—what you saw was something you have never seen before.

It glitters, shines. You saw it move, a very mind of its own, something microscopic almost and tentacle-like attaching to the edges of the glass sample. When you shook it, it hadn’t moved, just glittered, just stared.

No eyes, and yet you could feel it looking back at you. Something alive. Something not real and yet, you see it, just there—

As a scientist, you tell yourself that the ocean is vast. The ocean is unpredictable. What you see can be explained, but you just need a few books to look through, and this rig is not a fine collector of those kinds of things.

As someone who wants to get the fuck out of here, you know that something is wrong.

There’s something in the water.

You cannot sleep. You usually don’t anyways, but your work keeps you up now, keeps your eyes glued to the water-stained ceiling. You feel suffocated here. The four walls that surround you are tiny, and the ocean is so loud outside of your window. She never shuts up—she screams, pounding on the thick glass, pulling on the rivets and digging her nails into the metal so that you know of her disdain, her displeasure.

She doesn’t want you here. You are somewhere that you don’t belong. Manmade claws dug into her very skin, and she throws it back at you as a warning because she wants you to leave. You’re not supposed to be here. You didn’t ask her for permission, and now she’s telling you to go, but you know already that no one will listen.

When you send these reports, they won’t believe you. They’ll suspect contaminated samples, and they’ll ask you do it again, and when you come back to them with the same numbers, they’ll say you don’t know how to do your job.

You’ll warn them. You’ll scream. Maybe you’ll cry—maybe you’ll beg. When they realize you’re telling the truth, you know already that it’ll be too late.

It’s in the water. It’s in the water. It’s in the water.

You shake your flashlight, hitting the side of it until the yellow bulb flickers and turns on. You grab the knob of your door, unlocking it and pushing it open, and your feet carry you down the hall. There’s a satellite phone that you can use to call someone. You want to explain yourself, you want to tell them that you tried again, and that you didn’t fail. You know what you’re doing. There is science, there is knowing, but there is also instinct.

You pick up the satellite phone from its box in accommodations. You shake it, watching it come to life, and you take a seat on the floor as you spread your reports out in front of you and dial. It takes a few tries before anyone picks up, and even then, it’s difficult to hear them. The connection is noisy, but it’s enough.

“You cannot be serious.”

That’s what they tell you. Wrong, you’re wrong, it can’t be right, there was no need to waste an expensive phone call on an analysis that was simple and easily performed. Your lip trembles, and you try to find your voice, but it escapes you.

“No,” you whisper. “I swear. I swear. Something’s not right—we need to—”

One more time. You have to do it one more time. You toss the phone, clutching your head. Your hands tangle into your hair, and you pull, just to feel something. You need to make sure this is real. Your toes curl in your shoes, and when you feel the floor of the rig resist you, you know you’re not dreaming. You’re in the middle of the fucking ocean, and there’s—

The satellite phone crackles. The speaker enables, loud, and you flinch when the screen flashes, on and off, crackling with static. You hear distant laughter through the speaker, and you crawl to the phone to pick it up.

“Hello? Hello, who’s there?”

There’s a low chuckle on the other end. You recognize it. You can practically see his smile, pearly whites all too happy, innocent, masking the nasty thing it hides under the surface. You’d liken him to the ocean, but she doesn’t keep secrets the way he does. He hides everything he really is under a pretty face. He lures you in, takes a bite, and he swallows before anyone sees the chunk he takes out of you.

“S-Soap?”

The phone crackles, and when the screen fades out, and the speaker still sounds, your body goes cold.

“You didnae hear? ‘s in the water, bonnie.”

You’ve never been to his room. You know where it is; every time you walk past him here, he reminds you. He points at the door, his name scribbled on the plaque to the side, and he tells you this is where he is, if ye ever need me ta lend ye some soap. You usually tiptoe past it; even though there’s carpet throughout the accommodations section, you fear he has memorized how your footsteps sound, and you never have wanted to give him a reason to seek you out again, but now you’re standing here, in the middle of the night, frantically knocking.

The door swings open. The look on his face, though only there for a second, is nothing but pure disgust, anger, a dullness and a depth to those baby blues that you’ve never seen when you’ve ever looked into them. At the sight of you, his entire body relaxes.

He’s shirtless. Thick, pronounced pecs that your eyes fail to look away from that follow a solid middle. He’s hairy, a nice trail that lines his chest and falls under the band of his boxers, and they hug his thighs much too well, so much so that you can see him chub up just at the sight of you at his door. He smiles.

In just a moment, the depth of his ire disappears, like he flipped a switch as soon as he noticed it was you.

“Och…’n ta what do ah owe the pleasure? Had a nightmare, luvvie? ‘s nice ‘n warm ‘n my bed.”

“Why were you on the sat phone?” You snap. It’s the angriest you’ve ever been, you think. Your eyes are watery. Your anger is a defense for all the fear that lays just under the surface. “I heard your voice. What the hell did you mean? What did—”

“As much as ah’wud like ta spend all night listenin’ ta yer pretty voice, bonnie, ah’ve no idea what yer on about.” Soap leans against the doorway, raising a brow, and while he’s trying to be coy, you’re not having it.

“Why did you say that?” Your voice shakes this time. “W-What did you mean?”

“Bonnie—”

“It’s n-not right,” you spill. You hold up the papers in your hand, and Soap stands up straight when he notices the way your hands are trembling. He steps closer, into your space, and you stay there, rooted to your spot. You look up at him, pointing to the bottom of your reports where your math and algebra sit, and you shake your head. “Something’s wrong. I know it. I know this doesn’t mean a-anything to you, but no one is listening to me, there’s something wrong, there’s something—”

His kiss is wet. He swallows your words, tongue in your mouth, and you whine instinctively when he pinches your chin between two big fingers and tilts your head to the side so he can devour. His mouth is filled with saliva, as if he was drooling for you, and you open your mouth to taste him, leaning just that much closer so that the only air you breathe is each other’s. You open your mouth again to protest, getting just a whiff of clarity, but then those hands are on your ass, and he’s squeezing the fat of it in two hands and dragging you closer to him. Your palms move to brace yourself against his chest, and you note how warm he is. He radiates heat, and the muscle does not give, and if you were somewhere else, you would lower yourself and get your lips on the skin, suckle and bite and mark him. He’d look so pretty. He is so pretty. He’s fogging your head—his kiss distracts you. You wish you had more bite, but you do not. When he spits into your mouth, you swallow it, and that simple fact makes your eyes water with shame at how easy you let him have you.

“Shhh—shh…” Rough palms spread along your cheeks, thumbs fitting just under the curve and teasing the seam of your cunt, and you let out a strangled cry when you shake your head again and try to pull away.

“Please listen to me—!”

“Ah’m listening—”

“No, you’re not! There’s something in the water!”

When you are back in your bed, Soap is the one to tuck you in. He brushes the hair off of your face, cooing as he kneels beside the bed, and you’re staring at him through wet eyes. You are so sleep-deprived—you haven’t slept a full night in days, and you must look it. You feel it, because you’re letting Soap this close to you. You’re letting him drag his lips across your skin, letting his hands under your blanket, ignoring the way he thumbs just over your breast, your nipples pebbling at the slight tease of attention.

“Ye need some rest,” Soap murmurs. You sniffle, clutching the edge of the blanket, and when his hand draws back, you reach for it, holding it tight. He scrunches his nose just a little when your nails dig into his skin.

“You believe me, right?” You whisper. “P-Please say you believe me.”

“Ah believe ye,” Soap nods, “sure. Ah ken.”

You sit up a little, getting closer, and you squeeze his hand.

“Then why…you’re not scared.”

“Ah’m no’afraid of what isnae there,” he soothes you. Soap sits up on his knees, and you try not to think too hard about how large he looks leaning over you. He presses on your shoulders, until you lay back again, and he smiles down at you. It’s softer this time. He’s trying to relax you, and it’s working, just a little. “Ah’ve been out there, bonnie. Been workin’. She moans and groans real scary like, but dinnae worry—” He touches your cheek again, and you give him those eyes. Fuck, those eyes. “Ah’ll find ye if somethin’ ‘s off, bonnie. Yer safe.”

Safe.

When you’re alone again, another wet kiss drying against your lips, you feel anything but safe.

You would be more upset if you felt like he didn’t mean what he said—but he does, you know he does. Soap is like you in a way—practical. If while he was working, he noticed something off, he would know. He’s worked rigs like this before, he’d told you so, and you’ve worked with him long enough to know that Soap isn’t stupid. In fact, he’s the most competent person on the rig, maybe, and you’ve stared at his arms long enough to know that there is nothing half-assed or improper about the way he works. He is methodical, careful, and he knows the job well. Sometimes you see him press a big hand against one of the walls of the rig and close his eyes to listen. Like the ocean speaks to you, the rivets speak to Soap.

So why are they telling us different stories?

Opposites, just like yourself. You try to put distance between you and him, and you try to hate him. You tell yourself he’s been borderline harassing you, but then why is it that your feet gravitate towards him? Even when you don’t mean to, you’re in his proximity. You never go looking for him, and yet he is there. Your thoughts are filled with it, filled with him, and even when he goes, you can’t stop thinking about him.

Those eyes. Those hands. So much of him, that you want him between your teeth, and you know if you bit down, you’d meet delicious resistance, and in the face of panic and fear, his voice—like some lilt you must know, your heartbeat slows. What he says must be truth, even if it isn’t one you want to hear. Even if it’s something disgusting and terrible and obnoxious, Soap would never lie to you.

You’re so tender. When your fingers slip under the band of your sleep shorts, you find yourself so willing. You part your thighs a little, and you clamp a hand over your mouth to keep quiet when you feel how soaked you are. Your panties are ruined—so slick, sticking to your skin, and you peek it back to run two fingers between your folds and shake from how nice it feels.

When you close your eyes, you think of him.

You think about the oil under his fingernails. You think about what it might taste like if he stuck those big fingers into your mouth and pet your tongue with them—how bitter and foul the oil would be. You wonder if the salt of his skin would cancel it out or if he’d pity you and feed you his cock instead. When your fingertips slide and circle your clit, your back arches, and you think about what he would’ve done if instead of berate him, you simply had pushed him into his room a few hours ago and tested how quiet his mattress springs could be.

You’re ashamed, you think. Ashamed that someone like him could have you so out of sorts. So many different jobs, so many different men, but this one has you breathless. When you wet your fingers with your own cum, you remember the only thing in your head is him telling you that everything is okay. His unforgiving chest muscle under the palm of your hand, leaning over you to whisper in your ear, to kiss just where your jaw meets your throat.

Nothing amiss, bonnie. Ah’ave ye.

It isn’t the morning sun that wakes you.

Bleary, you sit up onto your elbows. You hear voices outside your room. Lots of footsteps. You get yourself out of bed, haphazardly slipping into clothes before opening the door and stepping out.

It’s eerily quiet in the hallway. You hear a heavy door shut in the distance, but then there is nothing. You flinch when something cold and wet hits your forehead, and when you look up, the ceiling is leaking. Water damage bleeds throughout the material there, more pronounced than before. You wipe the glob off your forehead, looking down at your hand, and your stomach drops when you see something sparkle. You cringe, shaking your hand, wiping it against your pants to dry them before moving again.

The air is too humid. The salt of the ocean tastes rancid. There is some meter somewhere, you think, that has hit its limit. What it measures, you’re not sure, but something is standing too close to an edge. It will either fall over or right itself, but there is no predictability and no balance in the middle of the ocean.

She will turn it which way she wants it to go, and today, you fear it won’t be in your favor.

You see it before you feel it. You make your way to a window on the far side of accommodations, one that looks out towards the rest of the rig. You can see sparks where men are working, large towers with cranes that are swinging. The fog is dense—you can’t see anything past the rig, just clouds that make the world around the rig seem small and void. You narrow your eyes when you see something shaking. You’re convinced that you’re off balance, that maybe it’s your knees shaking and not the metal cage you currently reside on.

It takes your breath away, the first blast. Something in the distance erupts just after a bright flashing light, and you feel it in your toes. You cry out when the force of it reaches where you are and throws you backwards, enough that you hit the wall behind you and crumple into a heap onto the floor. Something incredible must have broken apart—you can feel how heavy of a break just gave out underneath you, somewhere deep within the rig, suspiciously close to where the drill rests at the deep center of it all.

Your vision spots. Metal creaks and bends, giving out under some other kind of force, and you cower and cover your head with your arms when you hear a plethora of terrible, carrying screeches. Something surrounds you now. There’s air coming out of the ducts that smells off, and at the distance of it all, you hear the ocean.

She’s not sorry. She told you to leave. No one believed her, no one believed you.

When you finally uncover your face, you look around. Everything looks somewhat normal, but off kilter. You stand on shaky legs, continuing towards the kitchen, but just as you make it to the staircase, something blocks your way.

The walls have been broken through. Metal is shredded and bent backwards, giving way to something you can only describe as bizarre. Inhuman. Not of any kind.

Thick strands of pulsating flesh take up the stairway. In brilliant, large swirls, they come from somewhere outside, twisting and moving until they break through another wall and continue where you can’t follow. The sound of it—something sticky, wet, gooey with a pearl-like substance that drips. It shines, and you blink when you realize that you recognize the way it glitters, the way it catches the light.

There is something in the water.

It draws you closer. You can hear something from inside of it. The soft flesh of it, pink and fat with something you can’t decipher, beats to a rhythm that squeezes the organs inside of you. Your feet move without you telling them to, but just as you are about to get near it, a stringy arm of flesh breaks off from the pillar of it towards you.

You scream as you fly back from it, falling onto your back as you crawl away. The sticky end of it misses you just by an inch, landing and suctioning to the floor just beside your foot. You kick your feet, crawling away from it on your elbows, and you do the only thing you’ve thought about doing since you arrived—you run.

You see spots. Something glittery protrudes what you see, but you wipe the water out of your eyes and keep running. You’re losing it—this isn’t real. You’re in a dream, and all you have to do is wake up. You’re having a nightmare. When you wake up, you’ll run your analysis again with new samples, and the numbers will read normal, and you’ll pack your bags in preparation to leave, and you’ll do just that in such little time.

You won’t have to worry about the open waters, or the ocean that won’t forgive you. You’ll realize she can’t speak to you, and that it is all in your head. There is no angry woman under the surface. There is nothing throwing off the samples. There is no flesh breaking through the rig and trying to devour you. There is only you and the terrible things the mind can do.

You scream again when something grabs you. Flesh, warm, wrapping around you and holding you solid, breaking your run and forcing you against them. You scream and thrash, trying to break free, but then flesh speaks.

“‘s me! Christ, ‘s me, bonnie!”

A hand clamps over your mouth, and you stop. You blink through wet eyes, and when you can finally focus, you see him. When he knows you won’t scream, he lowers his hand.

“S-Soap?”

“Aye. Now quiet.”

“Soap…Soap, I saw—”

He puts a finger up to his lips, and your lips close. Your eyes widen when the rig groans, something breaking under your feet, glass and metal and the crack of destruction echoing against the fog.

In the distance, you hear a cry. It isn’t a cry you recognize. It gurgles, and it echoes, and something about it is just off enough that you know it can’t be explained. When you meet Soap’s eyes, you see the same conclusion in them. Finally, you see in them what you saw in yourself, what you could read on paper and see in the water and feel just under your ribs, making your heart beat against its cage like a frantic drum.

There was something in the water—and now it has come out.